I was wondering if the AI changed depending on the enemy or the period of war. If not, I think this could be a real bonus for the game if done. Some suggestions would be for late war having the AI be more reticent to send in armor against woods or buildings when the enemy may have anti-tank rockets/piats/bazooka, or have the AI push large scale infantry attacks/banzai charges with Soviet or Japanese. I'd also like to see the AI use a "reserve" unit in defense on occasion, with units spread out enough so that they might try to take your attackers in the flank.

So far as I can see the AI does not change between nationalities or at least not much. I can't tell if it is different later in the war. My guess is it behaves differently because the weapons are different.

Reserve Units. When I look at the stricken field after a battle, I do not see any blobs that look particularly like discrete units, but then my own troops don't stay in very good formation either. To anyone else they would just look like many individuals.

The AI seems to re-deploy units, or rather troops, towards my attacking troops and this, with a bit of a surge towards the end of the game, is what constitutes a counter-attack. I don't seem to have to prepare for it in any special way.

British-DefenciveAmericans-Not Sure...I guess they did a bit of everythin depending on the units at hand.Germans-Offensive(Rushing positions with heavy tanks)Russians-Open Charges(out in open fighting)Raiding(building warfare)

Hm, while you're certainly right that different nationalities are obviously renowned for having used certain techniques I don't think it can be generalized that simple. On all sides pretty much all tactics have been used at one point or another and with Firefight depicting about company-sized engagements the personal choice of the commander would be more decisive than the global doctrine. Maybe it would be a good idea, though, to have like 'strategy packs' which define certain behaviour for the AI commander (hesistant, determined, doesn't mind casualties at all, tricky, whatever else) and have one of those randomly picked for every battle. To reflect the country's doctrine the probabilities of certain behaviours getting picked could be dependant on nationality.But anyway I guess it'll be some time before anything like that will come up as AI is always very tough terrain for any programmer. The AI we got in Firefight is doing pretty well in my opinion, despite certain weaknesses, so maybe getting rid of those few weak spots should have higher priority than adding new experiments.

Dude,it was an example.I know it cant be put out that simple.but i was saying is that the British would be better at defensive games rather than assault games while Germans would be good at assault games.Im just sayin that different countries should have their own strategic strengths and weaknesses

1. Please mind the shortage of question marks in many third world countries and use those responsibly.2. I don't think you should question Andy's expertise in such a rude way.3. Well, according to your judgement UK troops were weak in advance solely due to the fact that they held fast in defence before the United States even entered the war? North Africa, D-Day, following fighting in Normandy and all of France, Market Garden, not to mention involvement in Burma, China and Pacific Islands... British troops were advancing right alongside Americans all the time.

To reply to StateRoute170 first, this is a very genteel forum. Your view of history is a bit on the simple side, which is natural considering your age. As has been pointed out no matter what the general strategic situation, some units will be required to do something different, that is, attack when the rest of their army is withdrawing, or defending when others are attacking. When a campaign is played, the situations reflect the strategic situation of the period of the war, so in 1945, germans will be defending. Historically, the germans were carrying out quite large-scale offensives only weeks before the end of the war. I don't play campaigns anymore for this very reason. I may give it another go some time.

To reply to Andy, there is no reason why brits are better at defence. It is simply prejudice perpetuated in lots of books movies etc that certain nationalities have certain characteristics which caused certain military outcomes. If FireFight tries to reflect this, the Italian soldiers will have to flee at the first shot in every battle. I have done a skim thru the membership list, but it is not in country order, and so I dont know how many Italian members we have, but if I were one I would be insulted by the idea.

That said, I would like to see what would happen if the AI used a mass rush by infantry against my firepower, with most of their men up and visible, or what would happen if I could try to rush theirs in the same way. As it is my soldiers will only advance in formation, at any speed, against NO opposition. If so much as a shot is fired at them they go to ground and start creeping, often creeping around opposition rather than clearing it out.

So I conclude that what TheKangaroo suggested is good. Strategy packs with enemy characteristics varying and randomized.

OK,why are you doggin me out about only the british?You f*ckheads seem to agree with me about the russians(Soviets in that time) and Germans.You must think you are all that and a bag chips Kangaroo(Germans always seemed to think they were better than everyone else and sense the your profile location is germany i am not surprised).Yea you know you think you are all that Kangaroo.Dont Lie.

Oh,oh,dont even get me started with Jeanboule,Jeanboule needs to mind his own business and stay out arguements between me and Kangaroo because after this post,im goin talk about him like a dog if kangaroo has the nerve to reply.

P.S.-Kangaroo,ive always had a problem with you and im puttin my foot down.

Alright...First, I'd like you to take note that I don't consider myself better than anybody else. I admit, though, that I do believe that I know a lot more about history than you do with plenty of space in the sky, means there's more than a few people around here, who - I'm convinced - are more proficient in that matter than I'll ever be. So logic kind of dictates, if they know better than me and I knew better than you, they'd sure know better than you. I agree, though, that there's some judgement involved you probably won't agree with.Second, this is not a private discussion but a forum. JeanBoule has all rights to contribute, especially in a productive manner and considering I myself actually cut into an argument you were about to spark with Andy in the first place.Third, I'm a bit concerned about how you might be treating dogs, for you use that as kind of a threat and I don't have any understanding for people mistreating their pets, but I figure that's way off topic here anyway.And finally you really should cool it a bit. I remember quite a couple of instances on these forums I've become rather rude and said a few inappropriate things, too, for different reasons, but thankfully people set me straight. So you don't like me, alright. Can we just get along somewhat peacefully anyway?

I havent trapsed through the forums to find this but from what I know:

The Ruskies are widely know to be poorly equiped, and had a fairly open idea about the value of a person - see Stalins comments on losing 1,000,000 men. This is much more accurate for the early war than the later, but from what eveidence ive seen the russians even after the war considered the equipment much more valuable than the men who used it.

StateRoute170 wrote:Germans always seemed to think they were better than everyone else and sense the your profile location is...

Firstly, its spelt since.

Secondly, where you go with this argument has absolutely no relevance. When the Nazi regime was set up, organisiations similar to boy scouts were banned, and the Hitler Youth made compulsory. From this point on the amount of Germans led to believe that they as Herrenvolk were superior to Untermensch (russians and most eastern europeans).

StateRoute170 wrote:dude,do you know any history on WW2??????????Battle of Britain-UK Defends,The only offense made by the UK was D-Day and North Africa.Everywhere else the UK was Defending!

Lots actually. Can I ask you 2 very simple questions?

1) Just as the Great War was 1914-1919, when was the 2nd World War?2) What is a good selection of war films/books?

And if you're going to be picky, I'd have mentioned the fact that the advance on Caen when compared to the capture of the Cherbourg peninsula and the rest of Normandy was immensely slow. A widely shared view is that this is because Montgomery had no balls and didn't take risks or push advantages, wheras it actually had something to do with an extra panzer division or two being shoved in his path.

First of all kangaroo,''talk about you like a dog'' is an expression!But I guess it's just an american expression.You may say that you dont think you're better than everyone else but i know you dont really mean it,but well maybe you do.And your were like talkin just because i put more than one question mark.You didnt say that to andy(Proof that you are a hater of americans and that you are full of shit)

Second of all Andy,whats wrong with the british being a defensive country?Maybe the brits in WW2 didnt want to take alot of casualties so they didnt do big offensives or if they did,they would go with the americans and let them get shot at.Just because a country is defensive,doesnt mean that the country is weak.Also,in WW2 the brits didn't have the most advanced tech as like the Germans(I still dont get why the germans lost WW2).

To anser your questions:1.1939-19452.I dont know,the library?I have never had to search for those kind of things but that doesnt mean i dont know alot about WW2.

Third,I wasnt trying to be mean to Jeanboule.He just could have said excuse me.

Anyway,you guys are a bunch of nuckle heads.Are there any americans in this forum?

I somehow have the feeling this thread is going more and more off-topic with each post I write, but it's interesting anyway.Guess I really haven't heard that expression before, haven't got the slightest clue of what 'putting the foot down' means either, but great to have that sorted out. About the question mark issue you just got me thinking for real. Ever since I was a kid somehow I seem to have accepted either one or three question- or exclamation marks, maybe because those are sometimes found in literature, too. Actually I didn't think you could possibly be offended by that remark, I was just trying to be a bit funny and well, to me (I don't know about the others) using these things excessively, alongside a few other things, just make things tedious to read, somewhat like somebody was desperate to make his sentence look more important. I'm sorry for that.I think the point Andy was going to make is not that there was something wrong with being defensive, but that Britain matter of factly wasn't defensive all the while. The vicious fighting in the area of Caen was a British offensive and British troops were leading the offensive in the Netherlands, just to name two examples. They didn't go 'with the Americans to let them get shot', they worked together as a team.

Well, chances are you won't believe me, but the primary reason for the nazis losing the war was, that most of the top-level leaders (most obviously the dictator himself) were poor strategists and politicians, and thankfully so.

And there are in fact quite a few Americans frequenting this forum, even though, because except for the past weeks there hasn't been so much activity on the forums lately, they seem not to stop by too regularly. Well, it's one more now, isn't it?